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[tlloyd]

Conscription
Action ($5)
+1 Action
"Discard any number of treasure cards from your hand. You may buy an action card from the supply costing up to the value of the discarded treasures, putting it into your hand."

This is similar to Black Market, in that it allows you a mini-buy phase (of sorts) during your action phase, although the available cards are those in the supply. It's also a unique mechanism for buying the cards, since you can conceivably discard treasures and then draw them right back to play them. It had to be non-terminal since the whole point is the ability to gain an action card and immediately play it. Like University, this only gains Action cards, so it's best for building an engine. But since the range of cards you can gain with this depends on the value of the treasure in your hand, this card gets stronger once you already have a working engine.

What do ya think?

[O]

Conscription
Action ($5)
+1 Action
"Discard any number of treasure cards from your hand. You may buy an action card from the supply costing up to the value of the discarded treasures, putting it into your hand."

This is similar to Black Market, in that it allows you a mini-buy phase (of sorts) during your action phase, although the available cards are those in the supply. It's also a unique mechanism for buying the cards, since you can conceivably discard treasures and then draw them right back to play them. It had to be non-terminal since the whole point is the ability to gain an action card and immediately play it. Like University, this only gains Action cards, so it's best for building an engine. But since the range of cards you can gain with this depends on the value of the treasure in your hand, this card gets stronger once you already have a working engine.

What do ya think?

I think its a very interesting idea, but I have no idea if 5$ is the right price. Certainly anything more than 5 is overkill. Also; variable treasure values yada yada yada etc... So you might need to restrict it to Coppers->platinums.

[tlloyd]

Conscription
Action ($5)
+1 Action
"Discard any number of treasure cards from your hand. You may buy an action card from the supply costing up to the value of the discarded treasures, putting it into your hand."

This is similar to Black Market, in that it allows you a mini-buy phase (of sorts) during your action phase, although the available cards are those in the supply. It's also a unique mechanism for buying the cards, since you can conceivably discard treasures and then draw them right back to play them. It had to be non-terminal since the whole point is the ability to gain an action card and immediately play it. Like University, this only gains Action cards, so it's best for building an engine. But since the range of cards you can gain with this depends on the value of the treasure in your hand, this card gets stronger once you already have a working engine.

What do ya think?

I think its a very interesting idea, but I have no idea if 5$ is the right price. Certainly anything more than 5 is overkill. Also; variable treasure values yada yada yada etc... So you might need to restrict it to Coppers->platinums.

Hmmm. Very good point. There are treasures where the value is unknown until you play it. Would the card work just as well if it used BM's mechanism of actually playing treasures? That makes the card strong in all of the situations where BM is useful (double tactician, etc.), so I worry that $5 might be too low, especially since (unlike BM) this is non-terminal.

[Titandrake]

Any gain in hand card is dangerous/not viable because of the following situation.

"Alright, I've played 5 Highways. Now I play Conscription, discard nothing, gain a Conscription, play Conscription, repeat, empty out the Conscription pile."

Whether that's the right move or not, I don't know. It might not be in many games, it'll make using Conscription more difficult. But the fact that you can just end the game right there (and you probably don't even need 5 Highways, some card draw and +actions lets you get away with less) is a bit disconcerting.

I guess the other issue (I'm spouting out the theoretical stuff now) is that when you gain a card in hand, no one else has a chance to "react" to it. When you buy anything else, it takes some time for you to actually play it. When you buy an Attack, people can get ready by buying reactions. When you gain a card directly, and play it before anyone can respond...it feels funny. There's examples of this in the present game too: tell me that watching someone gain a card, then reshuffle and play that card the same turn felt perfectly normal the first time around.

[tlloyd]

Any gain in hand card is dangerous/not viable because of the following situation.

"Alright, I've played 5 Highways. Now I play Conscription, discard nothing, gain a Conscription, play Conscription, repeat, empty out the Conscription pile."

Whether that's the right move or not, I don't know. It probably isn't in many games. But the fact that you can just end the game right there (and you probably don't even need 5 Highways, some card draw and +actions lets you get away with less) is a bit disconcerting.

I had considered "gain any card other than Conscription from the supply," but decided that the five-Highway scenario isn't worth worrying about that much. You could come up with an equally contrived scenario in which Ironworks could do the same.

I guess the other issue (I'm spouting out the theoretical stuff now) is that when you gain a card in hand, no one else has a chance to "react" to it. When you buy anything else, it takes some time for you to actually play it. When you buy an Attack, people can get ready by buying reactions. When you gain a card directly, and play it before anyone can respond...it feels funny. There's examples of this in the present game too: tell me that watching someone gain a card, then reshuffle and play that card the same turn felt perfectly normal the first time around.

I like this aspect of the card. You can pull a similar stunt using University/Watchtower, and I find those games entertaining.

[ftl]

Any gain in hand card is dangerous/not viable because of the following situation.

"Alright, I've played 5 Highways. Now I play Conscription, discard nothing, gain a Conscription, play Conscription, repeat, empty out the Conscription pile."

Whether that's the right move or not, I don't know. It might not be in many games, it'll make using Conscription more difficult. But the fact that you can just end the game right there (and you probably don't even need 5 Highways, some card draw and +actions lets you get away with less) is a bit disconcerting.

Becomes even crazier with Throne Room and Kings Court. TR+Cost Reduction+Conscription instantly empties two piles in one play; KC+Cost Reduction+Consription empties, well, everything.

That's probably okay. I mean, it's a multi-card combo, and sort of a cool one.

[O]

You can make it forcing and remove that aspect of it somewhat.. or at least require mass treasure.

"if you discarded at least one treasure" should be sufficient.

[DStu]

I would not worry too much about alternate treasures. First, you can define undefined:=0. Second, most alternate Treasures have an defined value before playing, it's just lower as that before playing.
Venture, Quarry, Talisman are 1, PhilStone can be argued to be 0 anyway before playing depending on how you read it.
The dangerous one is Fool's Gold:

If this is the first time you played a Fool’s Gold this turn, this is worth $1, otherwise it’s worth $4.

It has a defined value of you discard it, but it's ALWAYS $4.

For the cost-reduction cases: I also wouldn't care too much on KC-cost reduction-Conscription: Yeah, if you KCed some Bridges something strange might happen... If I KCed some Bridges I buy 8 Provinces, I don't care which edge-cases might also be triggered. So now that promotes the problem to Highway, and it's certainly milder than buying 8 Provinces.

So the only "real" thing I would worry about is playing 5 Highways, that's quite easy, it's a lot easier than playing 5 Bridges and 5 Highways alone don't do much without other support.

:e Idea: Use the Crossroad-mechanic? "If it's the first time you played Conscription this turn, +2 Actions."?

:e2 If you anyway want to get rid of the problems with the Treasures, you could do something like:
"Play any number of treasure cards from your hand. You may buy an action card from the supply, putting it into your hand.
Discard any treasure you have in play"

:e3 This now has some additional synergy with Black Market in drawing decks, but I don't think that's an huge issue...
:e4 And Mandarin/Mint-buys

:e5 If there's still problem with that, I don't see that the discarding is an really important part of the card. Yeah, if you draw you're whole deck you can gain an extra card without spending "real" money, but the possibility to gain a card in hand is different and interesting enough that maybe you should focus on getting this working...

[TheMathProf]

I was thinking something along DStu's e2 adjustment combined with O's most recent suggestion:

"Play any number of treasure cards from your hand.  If you do, you may buy an action card from the supply, putting it into your hand.  Discard any treasure you have in play."

[mnavratil]

I still don't understand the need to make it discard the treasures after playing conscription. Sure it allows you to play them again that turn or not miss a re-shuffle, but it seems to unnecessarily over-complicate the card. Why not just:
Play any number of treasure cards from your hand.  If you do, you may buy an action card from the supply, putting it into your hand.

As DSTu said, the gaining by playing treasure in the action phase is the interesting part. Discarding the played treasures feels tacked-on.

[blueblimp]

I had considered "gain any card other than Conscription from the supply," but decided that the five-Highway scenario isn't worth worrying about that much. You could come up with an equally contrived scenario in which Ironworks could do the same.

I made a puzzle thread on this subject, and I'd argue that scenarios involving Ironworks need to be much more contrived. Highway-Conscription is only a 2-card combo, and not even that hard to set up. (Whether it's actually effective is a different question.)

Here's why it's much harder to do with Ironworks. First of all, since Ironworks puts the Ironworks in your discard pile, you need some way to draw that Ironworks back into your hand. (Or maybe you have Watchtower in hand so the card goes on top of your deck--but anyway you still need to draw it somehow.) So we need to play Ironworks followed by a drawer such as Smithy. But then if we want to continue the chain, we need to have replaced that Smithy too! So at minimum we'll need to Throne Room that Ironworks, so we can gain both an Ironworks and a Smithy at once. But then we need to replace that Throne Room, too, so actually we needed to play that Ironworks three times--so the Throne Room has to be a King's Court, not a Throne Room--and also, for Ironworks to replace our King's Court, we need some cost reduction, so now our combo requires enough Bridges and/or Highways to have been played before we started.

So this gives us what I think is the simplest way (in the game as-is) to gain "infinitely-many" (i.e. limited only by supply) cards in one turn: play 3 Highways or King's Court a Bridge, have your entire deck in your hand, then repeatedly play KC-Ironworks to gain KC, Ironworks, Smithy, then play a Smithy to draw your gained cards.

That basic combo can be reformulated with Workshop, but it's much harder to avoid using the KC. See the thread I linked for at least one solution, which requires many different types of cards. It's a lot more intricate than Highway-Conscription, anyway.

[GendoIkari]

I would not worry too much about alternate treasures. First, you can define undefined:=0. Second, most alternate Treasures have an defined value before playing, it's just lower as that before playing.
Venture, Quarry, Talisman are 1, PhilStone can be argued to be 0 anyway before playing depending on how you read it.

I disagree with this. No Treasure card has any "value" whatsoever. "Value" in a Treasure card seems to be something several fan cards have made reference to, but I don't believe there's any such notion in the Dominion rules at all. "Value" is a meaningless word in Dominion. When you play a Copper, it gives you +1$. When you play a Gold, it gives you +3$. Other Treasures give you +x$. To say that Copper has a "Value" of 1 is assigning new terminology to cards that doesn't exist in the rules. If you really wanted to discard the treasure instead of playing it, you would have to say "for each Treasure discarded this way, +x$, where x is the number of $ that you would have gotten if you had played that Treasure." This would make Bank always worth 1, Philosopher's Stone worth plenty, HoP worth 0, Fools Gold worth $1 (because you wouldn't have played another one this turn).

[DStu]

I would not worry too much about alternate treasures. First, you can define undefined:=0. Second, most alternate Treasures have an defined value before playing, it's just lower as that before playing.
Venture, Quarry, Talisman are 1, PhilStone can be argued to be 0 anyway before playing depending on how you read it.

Fools Gold worth $1 (because you wouldn't have played another one this turn).

The other things might be true, but FG would be worth 4, because it is not the first time you play it this turn. You're not even playing it.

:e On the other things: IF you assume that Copper, Silver etc are well-defined, than the others are also. So if there is a problem with alternate treasures, there is also a problem with Copper...

[GendoIkari]

I would not worry too much about alternate treasures. First, you can define undefined:=0. Second, most alternate Treasures have an defined value before playing, it's just lower as that before playing.
Venture, Quarry, Talisman are 1, PhilStone can be argued to be 0 anyway before playing depending on how you read it.

Fools Gold worth $1 (because you wouldn't have played another one this turn).

The other things might be true, but FG would be worth 4, because it is not the first time you play it this turn. You're not even playing it.

:e On the other things: IF you assume that Copper, Silver etc are well-defined, than the others are also. So if there is a problem with alternate treasures, there is also a problem with Copper...

In the wording I used, I said get as much as you would have if you had played it. So Fool's Gold would be $1, because if you had played it it would be $1. I agree with the second part; and that's my point really. Copper, Silver, etc, are not well-defined. They have no value at all until you actually play them. A new card cannot use the word "value" unless the card also gives a rules-definition of the word "value."

[NoMoreFun]

I posted a similar card in my "Conflict" expansion (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1640.0) called "Tactic", except it's costed at 3, doesn't give you an action and you must play the card after you buy it. To counter the "buy ALL the tactic" strategy, there's a card at the bottom of the pile that you can't gain (so the supply pile doesn't empty for the purpose of powering up cities), and since you don't get the +1 action, it's probably not a card you're going to want the whole pile of anyway.

I really like the name "Conscription" though.

[tlloyd]

I still don't understand the need to make it discard the treasures after playing conscription. Sure it allows you to play them again that turn or not miss a re-shuffle, but it seems to unnecessarily over-complicate the card. Why not just:
Play any number of treasure cards from your hand.  If you do, you may buy an action card from the supply, putting it into your hand.

As DSTu said, the gaining by playing treasure in the action phase is the interesting part. Discarding the played treasures feels tacked-on.

I think the ability to gain and immediately play a card is very strong. If the card simply did that, I think it would have to be limited in the cards it could gain (probably $4 or less), or it would have to be a one-shot like Feast. But the first option makes the card boring, while the second is impossible to price (much better than Feast, but generally worse than any $5 card). The solution I came up with was to follow BM by forcing you to in some sense "buy" the card (this also prevents - in most cases - the "gain a Conscription with Conscription" loop, since you run out of treasures to expend). The reason I had initially gone with "discard treasures" rather than "play treasures" was out of a desire to avoid infringing on BM's unique ability. But the indeterminate-value treasures make this solution problematic.

The first potential fix would be to copy BM and actually play treasures during your action phase (notice that BM provides "virtual" coin and allows you to spend virtual coin. I'm not sure whether Conscription should do the same. Probably simpler to allow it).

The second possible fix would be to stick with discarding but somehow address the indeterminate-value treasures. I would note that the only treasures that truly fit this description are Philosopher's Stone, Bank and Fool's Gold (Venture is worth $1; the on-play effect doesn't change it's value). It wouldn't be too hard to specify in the rules that either ?=0 or ?=1.

Either way, I would probably also reword the card to "You may play/discard one or more treasures. If you do..." in order to limit the cost-reduction abuse.

[mnavratil]

I think the "If you do..." clause is probably justified to avoid weird situations, but may be left in if you want to encourage it to play that way. Interesting combinations do come up with KC and cost reducers, but I'm not sure these are good enough to be considered broken.

As for the treasure, you could also try other mechanisms, such as something like "For each treasure discarded +1$". This treats all treasures as exactly $1 for the purpose of the card, but it may help balance things a bit while not superficially limiting the card gaining the same way the other gainers do. Maybe this weakens the card too much though? Either way, just a thought.

[LastFootnote]

Man, this is a lot of discussion and work for the purpose of propagating messed-up behavior that currently exists only out of necessity on one official promo card.

GendoIkari's right. No Treasure card has a 'value'. Such a concept does not exist in Dominion. This 'number of coins it would produce if played' nonsense is a rules nightmare.

Here's my suggestion:

+1 Action. Discard any number of Treasure cards from your hand. Gain an Action card with cost in coins up to the total number of cards discarded plus one third of the total cost of the cards discarded, putting it into your hand.

Yeah, it's messy, but at least its behavior is well-defined.

[tlloyd]

Man, this is a lot of discussion and work for the purpose of propagating messed-up behavior that currently exists only out of necessity on one official promo card.

GendoIkari's right. No Treasure card has a 'value'. Such a concept does not exist in Dominion. This 'number of coins it would produce if played' nonsense is a rules nightmare.

Actually, he's not. All you have to do is swap the word "worth" for "value" and you are well within standard Dominion terminology. Philosopher's Stone, Bank and Fool's Gold all have a "?" in the top corners where the coin-value of a treasure card is found. In each of those three cases, the text of the card indicates how its "worth" is calculated:

Philosopher's Stone: "When you play this, count your deck and discard pile. Worth (1) per 5 cards total between them (rounded down)."

Bank: "When you play this, it's worth (1) per Treasure card you have in play (counting this)."

Fool's Gold: "If this is the first time you played a Fool's Gold this turn, this is worth (1), otherwise it's worth (4)."

So it would be entirely legitimate to have a card refer to the "worth" of one or more Treasure cards, even though the worth of Philosopher's Stone, Bank, and Fool's Gold are unknown until they are played.

[goober]

As for the treasure, you could also try other mechanisms, such as something like "For each treasure discarded +1$". This treats all treasures as exactly $1 for the purpose of the card, but it may help balance things a bit while not superficially limiting the card gaining the same way the other gainers do. Maybe this weakens the card too much though? Either way, just a thought.

I very much like this idea for the card.  It gives it an additional differentiation from Black Market while eliminating weird interactions with special treasures, essentially solves the potential problem of a long chain of conscript gains, and makes it tougher to get the really powerful $5+ actions that may make this card too powerful (hard to get 5-7 treasure in hand along with conscript with an action left).  It also creates interesting decisions for the player both within the current turn (imagine having enough money to buy a power action, but because some of it comes from big treasure, only being able to afford a lesser action if you choose to use conscript) and in overall strategy by making copper more important relative to larger treasures when conscript is on the board.  In my opinion this is just a cool and unique mechanic, plus it could set up a fun combo with counting house  .  Great suggestion.

[tlloyd]

If I was to go the discarding route without using the "worth" of the discarded cards, I would probably do something like "You may discard one or more Treasures. Gain a card costing up to 2X, where X is the number of Treasures you discarded."

[goober]

If I was to go the discarding route without using the "worth" of the discarded cards, I would probably do something like "You may discard one or more Treasures. Gain a card costing up to 2X, where X is the number of Treasures you discarded."

While this sort of wording is perhaps a touch more awkward than simply getting +$, I think you are right that it might be better, and is simple enough to be easily understood.  For one, it separates the buy/gain from any virtual money you have accrued from actions played before conscript, making getting power cards harder. It also keeps you from getting any "on buy" effects from cards like noble brigand, which may or may not be a good thing.  But I think 2X is just too much power. It allows for things like turn 3 goons plays, gain-and-play caravans for 2 coppers, gain-and-play minions (obviously for 4-card hands) for 3 coppers, etc. I think this also takes away the potentially most fun aspect the card, that you would need some way to get a hand with lots of treasure cards and an action left to make the best use of it.  You will already have plenty of power with the ability to chose an action to gain-and-play based on the game state at the time, especially with draw-up-to cards like library and watchtower, and things that like to be played when you are holding few or useless cards, like menagerie, minion and tactician. If you think 1X is too weak (I don't), maybe you could try 1+X, but that may start to feel contrived.  Also, I think the "if you do" clause is probably warranted.  It's common enough that people understand it, and eliminates some potential problems with cost reducers and action multipliers.

[tlloyd]

But I think 2X is just too much power. It allows for things like turn 3 goons plays, gain-and-play caravans for 2 coppers, gain-and-play minions (obviously for 4-card hands) for 3 coppers, etc. I think this also takes away the potentially most fun aspect the card, that you would need some way to get a hand with lots of treasure cards and an action left to make the best use of it.  You will already have plenty of power with the ability to chose an action to gain-and-play based on the game state at the time, especially with draw-up-to cards like library and watchtower, and things that like to be played when you are holding few or useless cards, like menagerie, minion and tactician. If you think 1X is too weak (I don't), maybe you could try 1+X, but that may start to feel contrived.

I think you're right about this. 2X would be too strong. I guess I'm torn, because discarding six treasures in order to gain a Nobles seems like a lot for a card that is supposed to be a gainer. The card is ideal for building engines (need more actions to keep your chain going? gain a bazaar and use it right now!), but in many engines you end up trashing all but your most valuable treasures. I guess I'm worried that by the time this could gain very useful cards (by the time you could reliably get this and five+ treasures into your hand with an action to spare), you might be discarding Golds and Silvers instead of Coppers. But like I said, probably 1X is more balanced. Should the cost still be $5 then?

[eHalcyon]

But I think 2X is just too much power. It allows for things like turn 3 goons plays, gain-and-play caravans for 2 coppers, gain-and-play minions (obviously for 4-card hands) for 3 coppers, etc. I think this also takes away the potentially most fun aspect the card, that you would need some way to get a hand with lots of treasure cards and an action left to make the best use of it.  You will already have plenty of power with the ability to chose an action to gain-and-play based on the game state at the time, especially with draw-up-to cards like library and watchtower, and things that like to be played when you are holding few or useless cards, like menagerie, minion and tactician. If you think 1X is too weak (I don't), maybe you could try 1+X, but that may start to feel contrived.

I think you're right about this. 2X would be too strong. I guess I'm torn, because discarding six treasures in order to gain a Nobles seems like a lot for a card that is supposed to be a gainer. The card is ideal for building engines (need more actions to keep your chain going? gain a bazaar and use it right now!), but in many engines you end up trashing all but your most valuable treasures. I guess I'm worried that by the time this could gain very useful cards (by the time you could reliably get this and five+ treasures into your hand with an action to spare), you might be discarding Golds and Silvers instead of Coppers. But like I said, probably 1X is more balanced. Should the cost still be $5 then?

Why not make it like Secret Chamber?

"+1 Action.  Discard any number of cards.  Gain an action card in hand costing up to $1 per card discarded."

This is stronger than only allowing treasure discards, and I think it is usually (but not strictly) weaker than $2 per treasure discarded.

[tlloyd]

But I think 2X is just too much power. It allows for things like turn 3 goons plays, gain-and-play caravans for 2 coppers, gain-and-play minions (obviously for 4-card hands) for 3 coppers, etc. I think this also takes away the potentially most fun aspect the card, that you would need some way to get a hand with lots of treasure cards and an action left to make the best use of it.  You will already have plenty of power with the ability to chose an action to gain-and-play based on the game state at the time, especially with draw-up-to cards like library and watchtower, and things that like to be played when you are holding few or useless cards, like menagerie, minion and tactician. If you think 1X is too weak (I don't), maybe you could try 1+X, but that may start to feel contrived.

I think you're right about this. 2X would be too strong. I guess I'm torn, because discarding six treasures in order to gain a Nobles seems like a lot for a card that is supposed to be a gainer. The card is ideal for building engines (need more actions to keep your chain going? gain a bazaar and use it right now!), but in many engines you end up trashing all but your most valuable treasures. I guess I'm worried that by the time this could gain very useful cards (by the time you could reliably get this and five+ treasures into your hand with an action to spare), you might be discarding Golds and Silvers instead of Coppers. But like I said, probably 1X is more balanced. Should the cost still be $5 then?

Why not make it like Secret Chamber?

"+1 Action.  Discard any number of cards.  Gain an action card in hand costing up to $1 per card discarded."

This is stronger than only allowing treasure discards, and I think it is usually (but not strictly) weaker than $2 per treasure discarded.

A combo Black Market/Vault that puts the gained card into your hand immediately? That is just insanely strong.